Pages

Saturday, June 23, 2007

We Took the Farm Using Eminant Domain From the Indians First!

At the risk of boring people one more time, I thought I would provide an update on the Maharishi use of eminent domain on a local farm. A public "open mike" meeting was held in the center of Maharishiville and according to my inside sources, it was packed to the gills full of "townies" as they call us. The Maharishi board of supervisors opened up the mike and let the people speak their minds.

Evidently mostly townies spoke and most of their speeches were about rights, freedoms and emotions of taking someone's property. Even a few gurus stood up and said they were opposed to the idea of using eminent domain to take the Palm property. With the exception of the gurus against this, there was nothing out of what I would have expected until the last few speakers.

One speaker was a well-respected local politician and organic farmer that was booted from his position on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission by incoming governor Culver for no real reason other than to make room for a political favor. He is a neighbor to the Palms said that they had indeed gone to the county board of supervisors to ask about building a hog confinement building not because he had any intention of doing so but because he wanted to "stir the pot" so to speak. As we all have seen, he succeeded well beyond probably his own dreams and may not be paying the price by having to defend himself against an improper use of eminent domain. So I will have to take back what I said about the local paper not fact checking themselves because there may be reason to believe that Mr. Palm has been speaking from both sides of his mouth.

Another speaker was a local Arabian horse raiser and said, and I paraphrase him here, "Now we all need to remember that before Vedic City uses eminent domain here to turn this farm into a city park that 'we' used eminent domain to take if from the Indians." After a few minutes of befuddled thinking by the crowd, he was booed from the stage.

An hour and a half later, the Maharishiville board of supervisors voted to table the topic for a week before voting because they obviously didn't want to vote in front of a largely hostile crowd and I can't say I blame them. Jefferson County Board of Supervisor Dick Reed stood up and said that they should table it for a longer time than that if they realistically want to study the issue as they claimed. The Maharishiville board of supervisors immediately changed the table motion to 30 days at which point again Reed stood up and said that thirty days wasn't anymore realistic than 7 days had been. The gurus decided to table the motion as long as informative discussion was still being held. The local rag reported that the Maharishiville board of supervisors tabled the motion for 30 days at the request of Reed so maybe my accusation that they don't check facts still stands after all.